


The Buir Trap

by reyiosa



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst-ish? but there's a happy ending i promise, Asexual Relationship, Background Fix-it, Boba POV, Boba is willing to pimp out his dad for one (1) blaster, Domestic Fluff, Force-Sensitive Boba Fett, Kid POV, M/M, Matchmaking, Mild Blood, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No Beta We Die Like Clones, References to past trauma, alpha as kamino's best worst older brother, fighting as flirting, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29419566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reyiosa/pseuds/reyiosa
Summary: Ever since the Jedi was meant to stay indefinitely on Kamino, Boba's been trying to figure out exactly how he fits into his and his dad's life.Maybe they could be a family. And clearly Boba's gonna have to do something about it.
Relationships: Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 30
Kudos: 469
Collections: Clan Tille Stans 2021 Ace/Aro Spec SW Valentine's Exchange





	The Buir Trap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MultiFandomTrash_1304](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MultiFandomTrash_1304/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day, friendo—literally got this piece of shit in right under the wire, lmao. Hope you enjoy.

Boba loves his dad. He loves it when his dad comes home and greets him with a hug first thing, no matter how tired he is or how bad a bounty has gone. He loves it when his dad cooks dinner for them and teaches Boba the steps, the names of the ingredients in Mando’a, lets him chop the vegetables and stir the pot and always lets him have the first taste to make sure it’s right, even if it means he laughs when Boba’s overwhelmed by the heat. He loves it when his dad tells stories to him before bed—he never reads from a book, he just makes them up as he goes along, and it’s always better than anything Boba’s ever read.

But Dad can’t _only_ be his dad. He also has to go be a bounty hunter—the greatest bounty hunter ever—and that takes him away for weeks, sometimes months at a time. And Boba gets so bored, and so tired, and so...lonely.

Dad always leaves him enough to entertain himself with, and that means a lot of books and vids in Mando’a or about Mandalorians, so that Boba can learn where he comes from. But what Boba learns is about this thing called _family_ : something that can just be a parent and child, but can include more parents, more children, even grandparents and siblings and even something called _cousins_.

Boba doesn’t have any of those. He just has his dad. (And the clones, but Dad’s insistent that they don’t count.) And he’s really lucky to have him! Before Boba was born, Dad didn’t have anyone. He had many buir’e and vod’e and more, and then they died, leaving Dad all alone. Boba hates being alone, but at least he never had to be without his dad.

Not until the jetii comes, anyway.

Kenobi is a weird guy. He acts like every Core-worlder Dad’s ever described—stopping shy of using the really bad swears like shab and osik—but he dresses like a shepherd, someone who lives in the high hills and makes sure the nerfs don’t fall off cliffs or something.

(Boba tells him this once. Kenobi chuckles in the way grownups do when they’re not sure something’s actually funny, but his grin seems real, so Boba calls it a victory.)

Shepherds don’t fight that well, though. He nearly throws Dad into the sea, but tumbles after him as well, and in the end, only Dad climbs back up. Boba thinks he’s dead again in the rings of Geonosis, using sonic charges that crushed every meteorite behind them into pebbles and left a high-pitched whine in Boba’s ears for hours. Nevertheless, the jetii turns up alive again the next day, chained up by the wrists in the capitol’s fighting pit.

After that, it’s a blur. Soon there are jetiise all over the place and then come the droids and the shooting and Dad telling him to run and hide and Boba doesn’t want to do that, but Count Doofus (he knows his real name but who cares?) is talking in that awful voice that makes Boba feel like he’s talking to a creature from the black of Kamino’s oceans and Dad’s making that face and his helmet was on and he’s flying into the arena and shooting the jetiise and then one of the creatures in the pit _tramples_ him into the dirt and when he stands up, he doesn’t have his jetpack, and he’s not standing right, like he’s really sick, and there’s a Jedi coming, blocking Dad’s shots and raising his ‘kad overhead, and Dad doesn’t _move_ fast enough and Boba—

Boba remembers screaming. 

He remembers reaching a hand out and _yanking_ at where his dad was, hundreds of yards away and—

He remembers his dad flying backwards, away from the Jedi, but he couldn’t fly, he didn’t have his jetpack—

He remembers the world going hazy, loud with the sound of starships and that didn’t make sense either—

Then he wakes up to bright lights and beeping noises and weird-smelling sheets, and Kenobi’s napping in a chair six feet away. In a heartbeat, he sits up like he was never asleep.

“Hello, Boba,” he says, in that horrible way that almost sounds like the Count, but worse because it actually sounds _kind_ and _soft_. “We have a lot to talk about.”

The war’s begun—the big one that the clones were made for, that Dad and the trainers and the Kaminoans would talk about in hushed tones when they thought Boba couldn’t hear. It’s the jetii and the clones against Dooku and the droids—which doesn’t make sense at all, since Dooku hired his dad for the clones. 

It’s not the biggest change, though.

Dad’s in prison now. And Boba could be a jetii.

“Most Force sensitives have their abilities shortly after birth,” Kenobi explains, “but it’s also possibly for them to manifest later in life, in a moment of great stress.”

“But– but Dad’s not–” Boba hiccups. “He can’t– and I’m supposed to be–”

“No, your father’s not Force sensitive. The gift doesn’t depend on bloodline, regardless of what many seem to think.” Kenobi smiles, but it’s not happy. Boba’s not supposed to know that, he realizes, but he does because he has _powers_. He has powers because he’s like the jetiise.

Dad takes it...much better than he expects. “You’re still my son, Bob’ika,” he says, awkwardly ruffling Boba’s hair with both hands, magnetic binders clasping his wrists. “You’ll always be my son. I’m– I’m sorry if I ever made you doubt that.”

“Kenobi wants to train me,” says Boba sniffling, because this is his life now: everything is flipped upside down and it’s all happening at once. “I don’t want to be some stupid kriffing jetii, I just want...” He sobs. “I just want…”

“I know, I know.” Even Dad’s crying—the greatest bounty hunter in the world is sniffling, his cheeks wet. “I’ll be here for you, always.” 

He’ll be in prison, he means, forever. Boba knows because he asked Kenobi once and Kenobi doesn’t lie, not like Dad does sometimes. “Your father worked for some very bad men, and the Republic wants him to face consequences for that. However, if he were to help us catch those men, I can help him in return.”

“Like a debt?” asked Boba.

“The technical term is ‘plea bargain’, but it’s a little like a debt, yes.”

Boba doesn’t want his dad to stay in prison. But his dad seems to think that’s the best option.

“What if you just tell them what you know?” Boba asks (begs).

“I can’t A Mandalorian always keeps their word. You’ll have an honorable buir to the end.” He smiles. His dad kriffing smiles like this is all okay and Boba’s not losing his father to some empty word like _honor_.

“Honor’s bathashit,” Boba spits.

“Language, Boba,” chides his dad.

“KRIFF YOU!” He’s screaming again, he knows it, and some guard on the outside will come and take him away if he keeps this up too long, but he can’t _stop_. “Kriff you and your kriffing honor! I want a family and you just want _honor!_ I’m not—” The tears fall, blur his vision and he feels like a karking baby. “I don’t want to be Mandalorian if it means you’re _gone_. I just want to be a family, Dad. Please!”

And Dad’s—he’s like a wall, stony and flat and unmoving, and it’s like Boba’s not even there. Boba runs out of the room, nearly collides with a guard on the way out, but he doesn’t care, he keeps running. 

Six hours later, Kenobi finds him in his temporary quarters. He tells him that his father is taking the deal.

* * *

When Boba returns to Kamino, Dad and Kenobi in tow, he’s not thinking about what the three of them might become. Yes, Kenobi’s moving into the guest quarters next door. Yes, he and Dad are meeting every day over dinner to talk about the clones and other things that Boba’s not allowed to hear. Yes, Boba is training with him on jetii shit now— “You’re technically not my Padawan,” Kenobi says like Boba has any idea what he’s talking about, “and I’m technically not supposed to be training someone outside the Order. But after Padme told us what Anakin did—well, I’ll be on probation while the investigation goes on. So what’s another rule broken, hmm?”

But Boba does notice the weird looks the Cuy’val Dar are giving Kenobi and Dad when they enter a room at the same time. He sees the A-class clones staring when Kenobi disagrees Dad on something and Dad rolls with it, sometimes even agrees with Kenobi. He sees the Kaminoans flaring their nostrils and narrowing their egg-like eyes when Kenobi insists he hasn’t been snooping in their laboratories and Dad backs him up.

But it still comes as a shock when A-17 walks over to him one day, taking a water break from a harsh spar while Boba sits on the sidelines and watches in boredom, and says, “So when’s Prime saying the riduurok?”

“What?” Boba scoffs. “To who?”

A-17 throws a thumb over his shoulder at Kenobi. He’s in his tunic handing three other A-class clones their shebs like the canteen droid slings lunch rations.

“Why would they get married?” Boba scoffs. “They hate each other.”

“Really,” drawls A-17. 

No, not really, Boba has to admit. Dad’s always hated the jetiise—and for good reason—but even he’s warmed up to Kenobi and his Core-bred manners and his silly hair and his slightly askew Mando’a accent. He still calls him “jetii”, but it’s almost like the way he calls Boba a sarlacc pit when he’s hungry again two hours after breakfast. And they’re working together on something: Boba’s heard their hushed discussions of Dooku and someone called Sifo Dyas and the Sith and the Senate. Dad says he works with people he doesn’t like all the time—the Cuy’val Dar are proof of that—but no one’s ever been invited to the Fett quarters more than once before Kenobi.

“What’s it to you?” Boba says instead. 

“I want intel,” says A-17 baldly. “There’s a betting pool going around.”

Boba frowns. “And why would I help you?”

“I’ll give you a quarter of the winnings. Not the blasters.”

“Half and _definitely_ the blasters,” Boba counters.

A-17 sighs. “A third, and you get a vibroknife.”

“I’m in– I’m training with Kenobi, too,” Boba says, tripping over the words. Kenobi doesn’t want anyone else in Tipoca City to know why Boba’s getting trained with a Jedi Master (“Knight,” he hears Kenobi say tiredly in his head). “And I already got knives from Buir.”

“Fine, one blaster. Tiny”—A-17 smirks—“for your tiny hands.”

Boba makes sure Kenobi’s back is turned when he flips A-17 off but like always, “Boba! Inappropriate!” rings out across the training room. A-17 snickers, and he’s not the only one.

Whatever. He’ll get A-17 to agree in writing, and then he’s getting a kriffing _blaster_.

* * *

The betting pool is about when Dad and Kenobi will get together. There’s no question of if. Boba’s a little miffed about that.

“What if they’re just really good friends?”

“Friends don’t look at friends’ butts like your dad looks at Kenobi’s butt,” says A-17. 

“ _Gross_ ,” says Boba emphatically. Then he thinks. “You hit Fox’s butt a lot before he left for Coruscant.”

“That’s different,” A-17 insists with a scowl. His cheeks are slightly red.

A-17’s bet is that Kenobi and Dad will start dating in a standard month. And apparently the bookkeeper didn’t make any rules about interference. Their loss, A-17’s gain.

Boba’s main role in this is, as A-17 said earlier, intel.

“What do you think of Buir?” he asks one morning, ten minutes into meditation.

“We’re ten minutes into meditation,” says Kenobi flatly. “Can this question wait?”

“It’s an easy question!” insists Boba.

“No, it isn’t, and you know that.” Kenobi arches a brow. “Ask me again in twenty minutes. Otherwise, we’ll start over.”

Boba scowls because Kenobi actually _means_ it.

“Why do you want to know?” the jetii asks once their meditation is over.

“Why not?” Boba can fake nonchalance. Dad’s had him run interference on mini-missions on Kamino to bypass the Kaminoans and the Cuy’val Dar. And one of the first things Dad had Kenobi teach him was how to keep Force users—like Dooku, but also like Kenobi—out of his head. “You guys used to hate each other, right?”

“We did not,” said Kenobi. “I didn’t know your father well enough at first to form any opinion of him. I learned his right hook thoroughly, however.”

Boba snickers. “But you guys are friends now, yeah? You like him?”

Kenobi cocks his head, his eyes oddly blank as they look off to some high corner of the room. Boba’s come to learn that he can never get a lock on Kenobi’s emotions unless he specifically projects them. “I suppose,” he says, drawing out the last syllable like it’s a question, but not quite. The corner of his lip twitches up like a spark, and just as fast it’s gone. “Let’s try that beginning kata I taught you Taungsday again.”

Boba’s so confused, but A-17 seems cheered by the news. “Ask Prime next,” he demands. 

“I was gonna do that anyway,” snaps Boba.

He doesn’t get the opportunity for a while though, because he wants to ask Dad when Kenobi’s not there, but nowadays Kenobi’s _always_ there. Boba spends his mornings training with Kenobi, and then lunch rolls around and Kenobi and Dad like to talk then, and then they both go off and supervise the training sessions and inspect the barracks and such, and then when Dad cooks dinner, he leaves out an extra setting at the table. That week alone, Kenobi takes him up on it four nights out of five.

How did Boba not notice this until now? Kenobi has slotted into their lives like he was always there. But he’s still a jetii and he still wears weird robes and talks funny and says nonsense phrases like, “Knowledge yet ignorance. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge,” so Boba doesn’t really know what to think. 

He finally manages to track down Dad by himself when he’s working on the _Slave_ one afternoon. The rain beats the durastreel panels like it’s picking a fight, but Boba’s used to it, has nearly fallen asleep once or thrice in the _Slave_ , waiting for his dad to finish repairing a cooling line or unstick a finicky control.

“What do you mean, what do I think of the jetii?” Dad retorts, making a face without lifting his eyes from his work.

“I dunno,” Boba says with a shrug. “You two seem...friendly.”

This time, Dad does look up from his work, and his eyes are narrowed. “Who put you up to this?”

“No one, I swear! I just wanna know, that’s all!” Boba’s talking too fast, it’s barely convincing, but it is the truth. It’s not even about A-17 and the clones’ stupid betting pool. The thing that Kenobi means is so big and so small, like the way Dad readjusts his training beskar’gam to fit his growing limbs, to fit the fact that he may one day fight with a blaster in one hand and a proper jetii ‘kad in the other.

(“The Republic tightly controls the distribution for a reason, Jango,” Kenobi said the one time Dad made the mistake of promising that in his earshot.

“What, so Vizsla’s Darksaber is approved by the Republic?” replied Dad with wide tooka eyes. “So are Ventress’s kad’e?”)

What Kenobi is to them _means_ something to Boba now. And what he really wants to know is if his dad feels the same way.

“He’s alright,” Dad says finally. He’s crawling into the walls noww, and half his torso gets buried in the wiring. “Good in a fight, doesn’t keep his head in the stars, he’s...” Dad pauses. His voice gets softer. “He’s good to you, yeah?”

“Yeah,” agrees Boba, just as softly. Dad looks over, smiles, and then clears his throat.

“He’d be a good Mandalorian,” he says, like it’s his final pronouncement.

“But he’s not a Mandalorian, he’s a jetii,” Boba points out. He doesn’t know why he’s arguing with his dad, but the words feel important, and they bubble out of him before he can stop them. “He’s never gonna stop being a jetii.”

Dad doesn't say anything for a long time. The sound of clicking wires and steady breaths and beating rain fill the silence. Finally he crawls out, sweaty and grime-covered, and he clicks the panel back in place on the wall. 

“There’s worse things to be than a jetii,” he finally says, uncharacteristically quiet. And before Boba can ask what the kriff _that_ means, he packs up his tools, opens the ramp, and walks Boba back inside, a hand draped over his shoulder

Grown-up stuff is so karking confusing.

* * *

“We’re gonna have to change tactics. Go on the offensive.”

A-17 squints at Boba over a forkful of moss-green rations. “What?”

Boba rolls his eyes. “They’re only good friends right now, but they’re not thinking about... doing the do or whatever.”

“Doing the do,” A-17 repeats.

“You know what I mean!”

“Tragically,” he agrees, because he’s a shabuir. “What kind of offensive tactics are you thinkin’?”

Boba breaks out the grin that his dad does sometimes—the one that makes even Priest think twice about staying something shabla stupid. It just makes A-17 rankle his nose. “They aren’t thinking about dates, so what if we put them on dates without them knowing?”

“Huh.” A-17 tilts his head. “That’s not a bad idea.”

Boba does not flush with pride, he doesn’t care what anyone besides his dad thinks of him. Okay, maybe Kenobi, but that’s it.

“One question though.” A-17 takes another bite of his rations. “Do you know what a date is?”

“No, I have no idea, that’s why I suggested it,” sneers Boba. “Come on, Seventeen.”

“Manda spare me from tubies,” A-17 grumbles, before dodging the wad of ration goo Boba throws at him. “Do you know what people _do_ on dates?”

“Yes,” Boba says. “The vids say you go to dinner together.”

“In your quarters? In the canteen?”

“No, like…” Boba waves his. “Out. At a restaurant or something.”

“Ah, yes, the wild temptations of Kamino’s restaurant scene,” says A-17 blandly. Punching him in the shoulder is like smacking a pregnant bantha, and Boba comes away with small bruises.

After doing more research, he finds some cutesy Nabooian romance dramas where courtiers go on ‘picnics’: outdoor meals in flowery meadows where nobles in fancy dresses eat coin-sized sandwiches and drink fruity alcohol and do weird amounts of blushing. He whittles the elements down to their basics: pack-your-own lunches, a shared outdoor spot, eating on a blanket, ‘enjoying the outdoors’.

Figuring out a scenic place to picnic in Tipoca City—where you only see the color green in paint cans and kelp-choked seawater—is the biggest challenge. But he’s the freest clone in the facility, and he’s made sure to know every little room and cranny he find.

Boba invites Dad and Kenobi separately to meet him the following day around noon. He convinces Dad to make uj’alayi and smoked frella fish sandwiches, and asks Kenobi to bring a blanket and a jug of iced caf. (Shig or any kind of tea—which Kenobi prefers—would make him suspicious: Boba has spit out way too many cups of tea to reasonably ask for it.)

Of course, Kenobi shows up early, in part because Dad’s hauling a whole pack of food behind him.

“Oh. Jango,” says Kenobi, frowning. “I didn’t realize you were joining us.”

“Likewise,” grunts Jango, straining under the pack’s weight. Boba winces.

“Here, let me—” Kenobi scrambles to his feet and reaches out to help, but Dad waves him off. It’s an awkward standoff of politeness, Kenobi’s are-you-sures growing in desperation and Dad’s it’s-fines shortening in temper.

“Thank you both for coming,” says Boba, forcing a smile. Both Dad and Kenobi cease their confrontational dance to stare at him. Dad narrows his eyes.

“So you’ve arranged lunch for us,” says Kenobi carefully. “What’s the occasion?”

“Uhhhh.” Boba gulps. “I...I learned about this thing called ‘picnics’ that they do in the Core.” A guilty wince from Dad; a moment of pitying intrigue from Kenobi, as if Boba’s some feral tooka learning home comforts for the first time. “I just wanted to try one.”

“And you wanted to surprise us?” prods Kenobi.

“Yeah, maybe I did!” retorts Boba, the annoyance in his voice real.

“Alright, alright,” says Dad with a handwave. “That was...nice of you. You chose a good spot.”

Boba grins, because he did. It’s an underwater observatory deck, out of the way and rarely visited. The Kaminoans used to use decks like these thousands of years ago to observe their corner of the ocean: its salinity, its plant and animal life, incoming predators and calls for help from nearby cities, which sat far below the water line unlike Tipoca City. Over thime, the ocean calmed and the Kaminoans’ technology improved enough that a space for visual observation wasn’t needed, but the space wasn’t destroyed, simply left alone save for the monitoring of the occasional mouse droid.

(When Dad was away, Boba once spent a _lot_ of time following around the Kaminoans, learning their ways, their histories, the place that they—and he—called home.)

“I didn’t want _anyone_ to bother us,” Boba brags. “The canteen’s just too crowded sometimes.”

“Hm, I rather like all the people. Their minds are very bright in the Force.” Then Kenobi lets out an wheeze, and Dad’s looking intently at the pile of food he’s unpacking. “Ah, but this is very nice, Boba, very...scenic.”

Dad distributes the sandwiches—fresh and cold and wrapped in foil—and drinks. Once again Boba’s caf is watered down to about ninety percent synthmilk, but neither adult is sympathetic to this injustice. He gets his revenge by doubling the sweet syrup, which earns him an eyeroll from Dad.

“If I knew you were interested in picnics, Boba, I would’ve done something like this sooner,” Dad says later. “They’re not just Core affectations.”

Kenobi perks up. “Did you frequently go on picnics when you were growing up on...?”

“Concord Dawn,” Dad answers. “Went a few times with my family, a few times just with my sister before she wanted nothing to do with me—she was eight years older.” He chuckles and looks to Boba and Kenobi for...some sort of reaction. He clears his throat. “Think the last time was when I was seven or so.”

“What made you stop?” asks Kenobi before Boba can think to stop him.

Dad smiles in a flat, shark-like way. “Death Watch came, murdered my family, and burned my house to the ground. My childhood ended there.”

Boba can feel each millisecond of silence pounding at his skull. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” intones Kenobi after a while, and Dad winces, sending a lance of cold through Boba. “Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la.”

“Marching far, far away. It was a long time ago.” Dad waves a dismissive hand. When Boba curls up in his side, he wraps an arm around Boba’s shoulders. “Shh, shh, it’s not your fault. It really was a long time ago.”

“I haven’t been this deep underwater since I entered the Gungan palace on Naboo, almost ten years ago,” offers Kenobi. “It was with my Master, about a week before he was killed by the first Sith seen in a thousand years.”

“What?” whimpers Boba. 

Dad makes a clicking noise of sympathy. “He was like your buir, right?”

Obi-Wan huffed. “He was my master. I was raised in a creche among other Force sensitive children and then shaped into the Jedi Knight I am today by him. I never had a proper parent, and never a relationship that looked anything like what you and Boba have.”

“That’s...sad.” Boba can’t imagine that life at all.

“Collective child-rearing is not exclusive to the Jedi,” says Kenobi with a shrug. “I was loved, I was cared for, I was supported and kept safe. What difference does it make whether I was raised by one adult or many?”

“It matters,” Dad says through gritted teeth while Kenobi rolls his eyes. “But we’re not going to talk about that because we’re having a _nice_ _picnic_ now.”

“...yeah,” is all Boba can manage. Dad just glares at Kenobi harder.

How romantic.

* * *

“You know, some people get together over sharing trauma stories and stuff,” offers A-17 the next day at lunch.

Boba’s made the canteen table his pillow. He rotates his head just enough to give A-17 a cold stare. “Stop trying to make me feel better.”

A-17 is unimpressed. “What’s your next plan, then?”

“ _You_ come up with something,” Boba hisses. “It’s your stupid kriffing bet anyway.”

“Good.” The shabuir smiles. “Because I have a better date idea.”

It’s a spar, which is simultaneously better and worse.

Since the war started, Kenobi’s been supplementing the cadets’ sparring schedule with Force-related drills, to “maximize their ability to integrate with their generals.” Dad used to work one-on-one with the clones a lot, but dropped it when the new class—the one with 200,000 troopers—came about. Now he’s back, and Kenobi’s been taking half his load. Boba watches both, his dad to learn how to fight hand-to-hand, Kenobi to learn more about how the Force works in combat.

(“Being a Jedi is more than one’s lightsaber, young one,” insists Kenobi in that proper tone he loves to use.

“Yeah, that’s what the flips are for,” says Boba, grinning.

“All ten-year-old Humans are exactly the same,” remarks Kenobi, pinching the bridge of his nose.)

Kenobi spars with the clones, he spars with the trainers (for demonstration purposes, he insists, but he definitely picks on the worst ones like Priest and Reau), he even spars with Boba. He’s never ever fought with Dad though, not since that night on the landing pad before they fled to Geonosis. They’ve never said why, and no one ever asked, Boba included.

That being said, apparently a part of traditional Mandalorian courtship is a hand-to-hand fight (or equivalent thereof, given the partners’ abilities and strengths and specialties). Boba didn’t know that, and he doesn’t know how A-17 knows that, but when he asks his dad nonchalantly one night, he verifies the claim.

The fight takes place a week after the disaster picnic. Boba invites Dad to the sparring room when Kenobi and A-17 are working with a batch of nine-year-old ARC candidates. This is the third group Kenobi’s trained today, so he’s removed his cloak and outer tunic. It leaves his arms and shoulders bare, pasty white and gleaming with sweat. A-17 informs Boba in undertones that this is attractive. Boba mimes gagging at the information and gets a shove for it.

Dad arrives with Boba’s lure of forgetting his datapad charger in their quarters. Cord in tow, he crosses the gym with his customary stalk—and for a single charged second, halts his steps at the sight of Kenobi taking on four troopers at once in the sparring mats.

Watching Kenobi fight is a bit of a treat, if Boba admits. He’s good—not as good as Dad—but so different from the way the clones are taught to fight. He combats rock-solid punches with effortless blocks, turn opponents twice his size into stumbling messes, and holds up to bone-shattering kicks by simply not being there when the foot’s supposed to collide with him.

“It’s like fighting a wind tunnel,” gasped an exasperated ARC trooper once after a seven-minute bout with the jetii. She looked frustrated and exhilarated by the experience.

Dad takes only a moment to look at the match unfolding before his eyes, hums, and starts walking again.

Only through the Force can Boba hear A-17’s teeth gnash from across the room.

“Hey, Dad,” Boba says with a patented Innocent Smile. “One of the ARCs asked Kenobi if he could beat you in a fight, and Kenobi said yes.”

Dad flattens his mouth, and looks back at the whirlwind of movement in the arena. These ARCs have figured out that group tactics are a far more successful way of fighting the jetii—but not successful enough. Kenobi throws them off in a swift and decisive blow, but he had to use the Force to do it, and the ARCs hop easily to their feet afterward, even though they were technically out of bounds.

“Well done,” Kenobi pants, the first sign of exhaustion he’s shown all day. “Let’s take a break for a moment— Oh.” The jetii blinks when he spots the newest arrival by Boba. “Jango. Hello.”

“Boba tells me you think you can beat me in a spar,” Dad says in lieu of a greeting, crossing his arms with that casualness he likes to fake before he whoops someone’s shebs. Boba barely hides a sharp grin of his own.

“Fighting you to a draw before Geonosis was no small feat,” Kenobi says calmly in between sips of his water bottle. “But I did do it. It’d be nice to try it again in… fairer conditions.”

“What I remember was you slipping off the landing platform and narrowly avoiding becoming one with your Force.” Dad smirks, all edges with a hint of teeth.

Kenobi chuckles. “What I remember is that you fell first, my dear.”

All around them the ARCs pretend to be looking everywhere but at Kenobi and Dad. A-17 projects all the delight and smugness that a blank expression possibly can. Boba, on the other hand, is trying desperately to tamp down on his frustration that this might work and his mortification that his dad and his– the jetii, are _like this_.

“Shall I refresh your memory?” Dad offers, gesturing at the empty ring. “Or am I interrupting another valuable lesson of yours?”

Kenobi laughs. “I’ve gone two-and-a-half hours without a break, and you walked through that door as fresh as a Cerean daisy.”

Dad shrugs with amusement. “Are you saying it’s unfair?”

“Not at all.” Kenobi kriffing _winks_ , his blue-green eyes twinkling. “Just the opposite: it’ll be more fair for you.”

That gets a ripple of laughs out of the training room. Except for Dad, but he doesn’t even look pissed, not like when a di’kutla trainer challenges him. He just smiles, and Boba can feel the amusement in it, set on a secure foundation of sheer confidence.

Boba grins. Yeah, _that’s_ his dad.

Once Kenobi finishes his water, he and Dad meet in the ring. Dad throws off his tunic in an overdramatic flourish, earning a loud holler from an extremely brave trooper, followed by a cascade of nervous chuckles. For a moment, Boba despairs being related to any of them, Dad included.

Kenobi settles into a relaxed stance, grinning at Dad. “The same ground rules as trooper matches: an opponent held to the mat after a count of five must concede, and I won’t use any fancy Force tricks. Now, when you’re ready,” he offers, as he always does for any match.

Dad’s response is a _launch_. He feints to the left and when Kenobi instinctively moves to the right, Dad nabs him in a hold and takes him to the ground.

The fight is over nearly as fast as it began. The ARCs hiss and holler in shock and awe. Kenobi is flat on his back, beet red, and _laughing_.

“Well played, Jango,” he says to Dad. “I understand the rules now. Another bout?”

“Sure,” Dad says with a shark’s grin, and offers Kenobi a hand.

Kenobi takes it—and throws Dad over his shoulder like a sack of bran flour. He lands on his back with a heavy thunk.

The ARCs whoop and laugh even louder.

It’s on after that. Kenobi and Dad circle each other like strill fighting for dominance over a pack. They test each other’s strengths, using the techniques that Boba’s learned from both of them over the past few weeks. Kenobi’s a largely defensive fighter, patient and willing to wait out any foe. The problem is, so is Dad.

And when they finally move, it’s kriffing fast. And _hard_.

Dad barely dodges a wind-up kick that took out an A-class clone earlier this week. He uses Kenobi’s momentum to push into his guard and land an elbow in the jetii’s ribs. Kenobi doesn’t so much as wheeze, but his step back looks more like an escape than a tactical retreat.

Kenobi tries another kick, and Dad straight-up catches his leg. It’s a feint though, and Kenobi uses Dad’s grip to hold his bodyweight as he leaps up, _wraps his thighs around Dad’s neck_ , and topples them to the ground.

That’s when even A-17 loses his kriffing mind. The room turns thunderous as Kenobi wraps a dazed Dad into a headlock that keeps him squirming but grounded. The countdown finishes and the cheers are _deafening_.

Dad rolls out of Kenobi’s loosened grasp with a huff. He’s bearing a loose grin, incredulous and panting as he catches his breath.

“Tiebreaker?” offers Kenobi. His exhilaration is bright and sharp in the Force.

“Bring it, jetii,” replies Dad, his lips curling like a knife’s edge.

This bout begins slow and steady, another match of defense and patience and deliberate motion. But this time, electricity curls in the air. Boba feels the tension, the bated breath of the troopers as they watch with riveted attention jetii and beroya circle each other, equal and eager to fight.

Dad launches an offensive again. It meets the unbreakable defense of Kenobi, but this time the jetii replies with a flurry of blows of his own, surprising Dad enough to go on the retreat for a moment. Kenobi’s jumping around, his style entirely different from the slow steadfast movements he favors. But this only emboldens Dad. He watches Kenobi with a predator’s eyes, waiting for the right time, for the smallest slip—

A miscalculated blow and Dad ducks in. It’s close quarters now, and the electricity turns to ozone, Boba swears he can smell it as the fight goes faster and faster. It’s only a matter of time now before a winner is called, but Boba has no idea who it’s gonna be, it’s too close to tell.

“Get his ass, Prime!” shouts one ARC.

“Kark him up, Kenobi!” yells another.

“Show him who’s on _top!_ ” jeers yet another.

It’s like a slow-motion speeder crash: Kenobi’s head whips around as if the words slapped him in the face. Dad’s right hook is already on its way and Kenobi doesn’t move fast enough this time, catches it directly in the nose with an audible crunch. As if by instinct Kenobi retaliates with an ungentle flip, and Dad’s right arm doesn’t move in the right way, and his shoulder definitely should not bend that way—

The pop is wet and awful-sounding, and so is Dad’s yelp as he lands.

 _Kriff_.

The troopers fall silent with a hissed _ooo_. Kenobi looks down at Dad and claps a hand just shy of his face, blood gushing freely from his nostrils. He looks at his dripping hand and makes a face of pure offense.

The look he throws at the troopers surrounding the ring is venomous.

“Who,” he hisses through bloodied teeth, “said that last remark?”

Years of survival instincts kick in, and the clones stay silent.

“Troopers, there is a fine line between camaraderie and contempt,” Kenobi continues, unblinking. Blood soaks his tunics now, drips in heavy drops onto the plastic-shelled mats. “Speculate about your generals’ sexual activities, especially in front of their _children_ ”—Kenobi makes a red-soaked wave at Boba, who for once cringes at being the center of everyone’s attention, the shame around him is palpable and unrelenting—“at your own peril.” He huffs and looks at Dad, who’s managed to roll into a crouch that hides just how pain he’s in. “Consider that today’s lesson. Dismissed.”

When Boba meekly follows Dad and Kenobi out of the training room toward the medical halls, he looks over his shoulder. The ARCs have filed out in silence, leaving A-17 alone. He meets Boba’s gaze for a moment, and sets to wiping the blood from the mats.

* * *

“Boba, I think there’s something we need to talk about,” Kenobi says softly, hours later. The three of them are resting in the living area of the Fett quarters. Dad’s shoulder is purple is in a sling, and Kenobi’s nose is wrapped in gauze and bacta-laced bandages, but it doesn’t hide the bruising around his eyes. Both of them have their eyes are on Boba, who wishes he could disappear into the synthleather armchair and never return.

“No,” he insists, because dignity’s all he has left. Huh, maybe he could understand his dad’s position, all those weeks ago, when he would rather rot in prison than give up the last chance to have any sort of self-respect.

“Boba?” If Kenobi’s voice is gentle, Dad’s is even gentler. And that hurts even worse.

Boba pushes his tongue to the roof of his mouth to stop the hot tears from falling. The truth is curling in his throat, threatening to push out, and Kenobi’s stupid eyes are too kriffing big and too kriffing blue, and Dad looks– he looks almost _nervous_. And—

“I– There was a bet.”

“A bet?” Dad frowns. His confusion is real— _why would Boba be involved in gambling?_ —as if Boba were above this sort of thing. Boba cringes, heat lashing his insides like lava-warm wire.

“The cl– the troopers were betting on when– when you two got together,” he admits in a rush. “I was trying– trying to push it along. Set you up on dates.” He’s refusing to look up from the stupid ugly rug that lies beneath the couch and the armchair, he’s always hated that rug and used to pull out the strings when he was three out of spite—

“What?” Kenobi says. “You– you were trying to get us to go on dates? Why?”

“A- — some of the troopers offered…to give me a blaster, if they got the date right. So I helped them. I– I wanted to push it along.” Boba shuts his eyes, hoping that if his face flushes hot enough, he’ll ignite right here in the chair. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Silence takes the quarters, undercut by the ever-pounding rain outside. Boba waits for the recrimination, the punishment, the gentle ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.’

He waits, and waits, and waits.

A gentle choked breath. He looks up in alarm and—

Dad’s hiding his face in his hand, his cheeks flushed and his shoulders shaking.

“Dear, it’s not that funny,” Kenobi says blandly.

“Are you kriffing kidding me?” demands Dad. “This is the funniest thing I’ve heard in years.”

“What’s funny?” asks Boba, confused and frustrated and completely bewildered. “What’s so funny?!”

Dad doesn’t answer, and his chuckles subside as he–

As he slips his uninjured hand into Kenobi’s, and twines their fingers together.

“Boba,” says Kenobi. “Your father and I have been together for three weeks now.”

What. No. No way. Boba’s hearing things. He’s finally lost it. He’s—

“When you came around asking us what we thought of each other, we though you figured it out,” continues Kenobi, a touch pink in his pale cheeks. “We weren’t sure how this would go, or how you would take it, so we wanted to wait.”

“We were going to sit down and tell you today,” Dad adds with a smile. “And then you told us something else.”

It’s like someone’s taken Tipoca City, turned it upside down, shaken it around, and plopped it back in the ocean. Boba’s head is spinning, his entire world’s been upturned.

Dad and Kenobi have been together this whole time. _Dad and Kenobi have been together this whole time._

“What the actual kark, buir’e?!” he shouts as soon as his voice returns to him.

“Language!” his buir’e say as one.


End file.
